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grass in and around the tree roots is a must before planting the ground cover. Otherwise you'll be on your knees weeding all the time, defeating the purpose of a carefree ground cover.

For the sunny location you might consider Blue Rug Juniper (Juniperus Horizontalis) This ground hugging shrub spreads to an incredible 5 square feet and looks especially lovely on a sunny hill planted in staggered rows for full, uniform coverage. For the ultimate in low-maintenance use a mulch of decorative stones and you'll never have to lift a finger. Blue Festuca (Festuca Ovina Gluaca) is another good choice for full sun. These pretty powder blue puffball-like grass clumps make a unique ground cover especially good for the rock garden.

The point of a groundcover obviously is to cover the soil but planting the individual plants too closely together will not allow them room to grow making a crowded bed which will need thinning out in no time depending on how quickly your particular plants grow. Spacing them, therefore, with their growth rate in mind will give you a good base covering with still enough room for the plants to grow.

Be aware that thinning out will become necessary at some point and there are also the times when the ground cover will quite literally leap its bounds and grow in walkways, driveways, creep into other garden beds and even the lawn. You'll simply have to weed them out. Providing a strong barrier set deep into the ground and extending over it can help them stay in place but with some ground covers like English Ivy with its voracious root system it might do nothing but hinder them for a little while. Nothing short of brutal pruning can curtail some ground covers.

The best way to find a ground cover with the right qualities for your application is to find a knowledgeable person well versed in ground covers. In other words someone who has already had the dubious pleasure of growing them therefore knowing what to expect. These people, better known as the garden buddy, are invaluable and every gardener should get one. Helium is full of them in case you didn't know.

Hope this guide to growing ground covers helps in your search of the perfect one for your landscape. Once you get the hang of growing ground covers you'll wonder how you lived without them.

Learn more about this author, Glory Lennon.
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